The best 40 winks i ever had (40 Winks - Conquer your dreams (PS))

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Product:	40 Winks - Conquer your dreams (PS)
Date:	18/06/01 (33 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good for kids

Disadvantages: too much for kids

"Elevated brain activity is boring!" states one of the two child protagonists at the beginning of this fanciful, follow-cam effort. The game begins as siblings Ruff and Tumble (gag now or forever hold your lunch) are more or less ordered to a peaceful, no-talking, no-pillow-fights bedtime slumber by their mother, who explains to them that good dreams of all stripes are designed by the loveable Winks, while dreams of the darker, uglier kind are the diabolical work of the evil HoodWinks, dementedly determined to poison the sleep of countless innocents at the whim of phantasmagorical villains NiteKap (a kind of crotchety, Scrooge-esque nemesis) and bumbling sidekick ThreadBear (a none-too-bright teddy bear). In a kind of Dream Warriors-type premise--minus all the implied sex and violence--40 Winks players venture into various dream worlds (as either brother Ruff or sister Tumble), rescuing the imprisoned Winks and swiping, screaming, and otherwise beating the living crap out of the HoodWinks who populate and foul every level.

I can't help but feel that 40 Winks is a terrific art-as-life example for gamers who are young or are young at heart. The essential message is that even the most juvenile adventurers stab westward into their dreams, and without substantial props or crutches, commence to single-handedly beat the virtual piss out of the phobias, specters, and phantasms that give the Land of Nod a bad name. What greater developmental good is there?

Players run into six adequately massive dream-universes (including a pirate world, the moon, and a haunted realm with environs very obviously influenced by Disney World's haunted mansion, complete with altering portraits and floating candelabrum). The objectives in each universe are rescuing Winks, collecting cogs to open doors, and donning various fanciful costumes to acquire temporary super-powers (an idea previously explored in Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko); the hulking caveman costume o
ffers a shotgun-wide (and faintly-nauseating) belch-type attack, and the blade-wielding ninja getup affords much more violent, hands-on elimination of the dream-world foes. Appropriate to what is generally known as "dream logic," the availability of various costumes is the one aspect of the game that seems to fly in the face of common sense. In the haunted realm, for example, you're just as likely to turn up as a stealth ninja as a monstrosity--but this is the way that dreams work, isn't it?

Generally--costume-specific options aside--the gameplay choices remain confined to run, jump, a rushing attack, a butt-bounce attack in the vein of Mario 64, and a medium-range attack which seems to take the form of a focused, powerful scream directed at the immediate threat (another beautiful dream-logic touch, as anyone who has had nightmares can attest--if all else fails, shriek the enemy into nonexistence). Of course, your ability to remain present and healthy in the dream world depends upon the collection of various iconic tags--including the Z's needed to maintain sleep, the cogs that open doors into deeper stages of sleep, the moons required to power the long-ranged scream attack, and the dream keys which allow access to dream realms of entirely different motifs.

Any game deficiencies here are not in the form of what has been executed badly, but merely in the form of what has been left out, possibly for fear of alienating less-sophisticated gamers. The half-goofy/half-spooky dream realms (particularly those which seem to tip their surreal hats to the haunted mansion) fairly scream for more mature depth that just isn't there. All in all, 40 Winks leans in the direction of a for-all-ages game experience; and while it largely succeeds, the jewel-box quote of "move over, Mario" is awfully optimistic. 40 Winks is worth a good solid try, regardless of your gaming experience...but its ultimately timid execution makes it fal
l just short of gaming brilliance.

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